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Cooking with Linux - Because Nothing Says High Performance Like a Good Race

Repeat what you just told me, François. No! Don't tell me that! Yes,
François, I know I told you to repeat what you told me, but I was
sincerely hoping I was mistaken and that I had heard something entirely
different. Something like, “Patron, I lost the key to the filing
cabinet”,
not, “I lost the key to the wine cellar.” In my first
restaurant job,
François, this would have been considered a firing offense. No,
mon
ami, I am not going to fire you, but this is terrible! What
shall
we serve our guests?

Non! I see them walking toward the restaurant now.
Quickly,
François, think of something. Why you? Because you locked up the wine
cellar minutes before opening time, then proceeded to lose the key.
That's
why. Quoi? Serve beer from my personal
réfrigérateur de
bière? That is not a bad idea at all, mon
ami. You live to
serve another day, non? Don't look so hurt,
François. We have
guests. Quickly!

Ah, welcome, everyone, to Chez Marcel, where fine
Linux fare
is served with the most excellent wines from one of the world's premier
wine cellars—that is, except tonight. It seems my faithful waiter has
lost the keys to the wine cellar. Never fear, mes
amis, though I
love that wondrous liquid fruit of the grape, your Chef also enjoys a
good
beer, be it lager or ale. So, tonight's menu will be accompanied by
selections from my own réfrigérateur de bière.
Please, sit and
make yourselves comfortable. François can offer you several excellent
selections, all favorites of mine, including Alexander Keiths' India Pale
Ale, Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale, Sleeman's Original, Unibroue Maudite
and several others.

As you know, mes amis, this issue's theme is
high performance, which we all know can refer only to racing and
automobiles. If the words high performance and Linux don't immediately
generate the same association in your mind, you should know that in point
of fact, Linux and car racing go very well together. The 2007 Indianapolis
500 featured the first ever Linux-sponsored car. The brainchild of Ken
Starks, aka helios, the Tux500 Project succeeded in its aim to
raise enough money to place Tux, the familiar Linux mascot created by
Larry Ewing, on the hood of an Indy car. For more details, go to
www.tux500.com.

Figure 1. The Tux500
Indianapolis racecar—notice the logo on the hood.

In honor of this momentous event, the first race game on
tonight's menu, SuperTuxKart, features the very same
Tux
at the wheel. SuperTuxKart, maintained by Joerg
Henrichs, is an
updated and enhanced version of the original
TuxKart, created by Steve
Baker. If you've played the original, you'll be impressed by the new,
hugely improved, SuperTuxKart. The game features
slick new graphics,
new tracks, cool characters, racing adventures and more. You take the
controls as one of several characters, including Tux, Penny (his friend),
Mr. Ice Block, Sushi the Octopus (Figure 2), Yeti and others. You
can get SuperTuxKart from supertuxkart.berlios.de.

Figure 2. SuperTuxKart features some colorful
characters, many with equally
colorful names.

Your next step is to choose whether you want to race on your own (for
practice) or enter a race with other players. These
can be other humans (masquerading as SuperTuxKart
characters, of course),
or they can be computer AI players. Once your cast is assembled, it's
time to select a race type and course. You can indulge in a Grand Prix
event that takes you through all 13 courses, a handful, or simply
go for a single race and select a time trial.

Note:

All these packages are available as source
code bundles from their respective Web sites. Before you start compiling
(unless you want to, of course), check your distribution's software
repositories for binary packages. In all cases, I had no trouble finding
packages.

Once you are lined up at the starting line, don't be too hasty putting
the pedal to the metal or you'll be fined penalty points. Once you are
off, your car can do some interesting things besides drive. For starters,
you can momentarily jump above your competition and any obstacles in
your path. Keep moving and collect spinning cubes along the way, as these
contain things like rockets, which you then can fire at opponents and
obstacles alike (Figure 3). Try to pick up the spinning fish coins
as well—a penguin's gotta eat.

Figure 3. Explosions? They never told me there would be explosions!

The courses in SuperTuxKart are fun, colorful and
imaginative. Race
though an undersea lair, through the shifting sands of the Egyptian
desert or around obstacles in Oliver's Math Glass. And, don't worry too
much about falling off the edge of the world or an altogether psychedelic
cliff. Your jumping/flying car will carry you back to safety using its
combination magnetic levitation system and butterfly wings.

The next item on tonight's menu is a great racing game called
VDrift. Created by Joe Venzon,
VDrift is an exciting game
based on drift racing. The V in VDrift refers to the
Vamos Automotive
Simulator, written by Sam Varner. Vamos is the physics engine that
powers the game. Aside from being exciting and great fun to play,
VDrift
comes with 19 world-class tracks and 28 different car models.
VDrift is
available at vdrift.net.

Figure 4. On the
Track with VDrift against a Computer Player

In case you don't know what drift racing is (your humble Chef
did not), it's a form of racing where the driver employs
“drifting” to control the car. Doesn't help? Well, this
quote from Wikipedia might clear things up: “A car is said to be
drifting when the rear
slip angle is greater than the front slip angle and the front wheels
are pointing in the opposite direction of the turn.” In other
words,
the car is turning one way, but the wheels are pointing in another
direction. This, strange as it may seem, this is not an accident. Remember,
the driver is in control. As the driver, what you are doing is sliding
into a turn to avoid slowing down as much as possible.

When the game starts, you can select the car you want and, in some
cases, the color. Where you race is another option. Choose a racetrack
or go for a relaxing, high-speed drive in the country. Practice races
put you on the track with no other cars to worry about. Races pit you
against an opponent. On a single computer, you can play
VDrift alone or
against a computer opponent, at which point, you also can decide on your
opponent's car model and color (Figure 5). VDrift
also can be run as
a server, at which point, your friends can join in for a networked game.

Figure 5. VDrift
lets you select from several different cars, colors and racing venues.

Several option controls exist to make the game more realistic,
and more difficult, if you so choose. For instance, you can decide
what effect speed has on steering by adjusting a slider to a desired
percentage. The higher the percentage, the more difficult it is at high
speeds. You also can choose to map different keys for the gas pedal,
brakes and steering. Shifting and clutch controls can be defined as
well. I confess that I found it much easier to set up to use an automatic
transmission on my first few races. That brings up another
point—make sure you are in gear before you start. It took me a few
tries
before I realized that I was going backward. Press the S key to start,
then press 1 to get in gear. If you have selected automatic,
shifting will happen automatically for you after this.

There are more options and settings, which I'll let you discover,
but I do want to mention one other group of settings that may be
important. Given that this an OpenGL game and that it does require
hardware 3-D acceleration, owners of somewhat less-powerful video cards
may find the game more responsive by toning down some of the effects.

As you race, you can change your viewing angle by pressing F1 through
F5. If you find yourself totally taken with the action on-screen and you
feel the desire to preserve the moment, you can get a screenshot of the
action at any time by pressing F12. Those images will appear in the folder
.vdrift/screenshots in your home directory.

The final item on tonight's menu is the perfect selection for those of
you who experience a kind of mania when it comes to racecar driving. The
game, aptly named ManiaDrive, is an incredibly
fast-paced game
with rapid turns, nerve-wracking jumps (Figure 6) and a driving,
rocking, soundtrack (ManiaDrive is actually a clone
of Nadéo Studio's
Trackmania game). ManiaDrive
features a training mode designed to
prepare you for the real thing and a set of complex tracks that can be
played locally or on-line with other players. You can get
ManiaDrive from
maniadrive.raydium.org.

Figure 6. Yes, it
is exactly what it looks like. There is a huge gap in the road. Hammer
down, jump, keep it straight and keep your cool.

When you start ManiaDrive, make sure you go through
the Beginner
story, which will guide you through the various moves that are
expected of you. When you are ready for the big time, choose the Pro
story
mode. This game is more an endurance and skill test than a race. Sure,
there's a clock ticking and your speed is tracked (on-line, against
others,
no less), but races last only a short time, some less than a minute.
If
you are the type that gets bored quickly, ManiaDrive
is for you.

Speaking of fast, is it possible that the time has gone by so
quickly? Mon Dieu! And yet, it does appear that
closing time is
almost upon us. Well, mes amis, despite the apparent
crisis that
we apparently faced tonight, I dare say the beer selection was most
refreshing. I can tell from your approving nods that you agree with
me. Nevertheless, tomorrow, I shall have the wine cellar lock changed,
and next time, our award-winning cellar will once again be open. But
for now, François will pour you another beer that you may enjoy at
your leisure while you enjoy another race. Remember, mes
amis,
that sitting in front of your Linux systems driving a virtual car is
the only way to drink and drive safely. Raise your glasses, mes
amis,
and let us all drink to one another's health.
A votre santé! Bon appétit!

Marcel Gagné is an award-winning writer living in Waterloo,
Ontario. He is the author of the all-new Moving to Free
Software,
his sixth book from Addison-Wesley. He also makes regular television
appearances as Call for Help's Linux guy. Marcel is also a pilot, a
past Top-40 disc jockey, writes science fiction and fantasy, and folds a
mean Origami T-Rex. He can be reached via e-mail at
[email protected].
You can discover lots of other things (including great Wine links)
from his Web site at www.marcelgagne.com.